Publisher’s Note
In my last “Publisher’s Note,” in our Spring 2011 catalog, I hinted at some big changes ahead. I can now
be less coy about this and announce (unless you’re a reader of the publishing business press, in which
case you may already know) that Princeton Architectural Press has joined, at the beginning of this year,
the McEvoy Group of companies, which includes Spin magazine, the publisher/packager Becker&Mayer,
and, most importantly, our friends and colleagues at Chronicle Books, the much-admired San Francisco–
based publisher and our North American distributor since 1995, and arguably the biggest single factor in
our growth since then.
Almost as soon as this deal was made public, some of the publishing trade magazines called
to ask why I’d sold the Press: was it the decline of independent bookstores, always champions and
showcases of our books, the bankruptcy of Borders, or the rise of e-books? My answer was simple: this
is a partnership based not on necessity but on strategic strengths and a shared optimism about the
possibilities ahead for both companies. The McEvoy Group believes strongly in the future of the printed
book (look no further than the books produced by Chronicle for confirmation of this). As Dave Eggers,
founder/publisher of McSweeney’s, recently wrote, these are actually very good times for books: more
people read than ever before (including teens), more books are sold now than at any time in the past
twenty years, and there are actually more independent bookstores now than there were two years ago.
Anybody who declares that the printed book is dead clearly hasn’t looked at the beautiful new offerings
in this catalog on pages 15 to 52. The simple truth remains that the printed book is an ecologically finetuned device, made of reusable and sustainable materials (such as recycled paper and soy-based inks),
capable of displaying four color information at extremely high resolutions, and which can be made and
distributed at very low cost and used with no external power source. All this without even considering
the tactile and haptic dimensions of the printed, bound artifact, something which even the sexiest tablet
will never come close to duplicating. See, for example, our book on Patty Curtan’s menus and artwork
she’s created in letterpress and linoleum block for the celebrated restaurant Chez Panisse (p. 15) over the
past forty years, if you’re looking for an example of art- and book-making that can never be simulated
electronically.
This said, it would be foolish to ignore the opportunities available to the forward-looking in
the realm of digital publishing, and this is another area where we look ahead optimistically with the
McEvoy Group. Indeed, you’ll find many of our books available in e-reader format at places like amazon.
com, and hundreds of titles available for use, particularly by students and professors, at online libraries
like ebrary.com and learningtree.com (details on specific titles available on our website at www.papress.
com). When I watch my teenage sons leave the house in the morning with their forty-pound backpacks,
I know firsthand that a lightweight and easily updated electronic course reader makes a huge amount of
sense, and we are committed to making as many of our books available in this way as possible, and on the
devices most consistent with our commitment to design and typographic excellence.
So it is this dual commitment to the printed book and enthusiasm for the new frontiers opened
up by digital publishing that culminated in our agreement with the McEvoy Group. As they were thirty
years ago when the Press began, these are exciting times for publishing, full of promise, great ideas, and
bright and creative coworkers. So rather than the end of a chapter, I think it is much more appropriate to
think of this new partnership as the opening sentence in chapter two, the next thirty years. I’m confident
you’ll find the books in this new catalog, whether you buy or download them, as rich food for thought
and inspiration as any published in the world today.
As always, we greatly welcome your feedback, ideas, and comments. Feel free to email me at
lippert@papress.com or leave notes on our website www.papress.com.

As we head into the fall of our 30th
Anniversary year, we can’t help but feel
a little introspective. Looking back at
our books in print, it’s encouraging to
see how much of our published past we
bring with us into the future. We hope
the following assortment of recent
bestsellers will soon join the ranks of
our timeless perennials. Much more
than just strong “backlist titles,” the
ongoing success of these books reflects
their status as dependable sources of
knowledge and inspiration for our
readers. It’s your appetite for bright
ideas and smart design—as well as your
enthusiastic word-of-mouth and online
recommendations—that makes
everything we do possible.

“And now I sketch for different
reasons—sometimes just to draw, sort
of for fun, sort of as an exercise,
maybe the way knitters knit. Other
times, I sketch to work out ideas, or
make notes of ideas as they come
up—the same way I keep a notebook
for writing. The examples here are
typographic sketches that are different
from what I do in average sketchbooks.
They are part of our collaborative
process. First we talk, and possibly
scribble something. Then Dikko sets
type and proofs some things. I cut it
up and move it around into a rough
pasteup, and he sets that up on the
press and proofs. Then we fine-tune,
and eventually, finally, voilà!”
e st h e r k . smi t h, from t y po gr a ph y s k etc h b o ok s
For more information about this title, see page 39

“Paula Scher’s giant map paintings,
despite the fact that they are
composed entirely of boundary lines,
place-names, and information relevant
to the identity of their subjects, do not
depict any place. The hum of
information overload, the fullness of
the overwritten surface of the canvas,
and a suggestion of wistful wanderlust
bring a hint of thaw, but the icy
disjunct between the land in question
and its treatment remains absolute—
and more informative than any
depiction could be.”
n e l l mc c li ste r , b om b m aga z i n e
For more information about this title, see page 21

7

“Also called ‘radiant thinking,’ mind
mapping is a form of mental research
that allows designers to quickly
explore the scope of a given problem,
topic, or subject area. Starting with a
central term or idea, the designer
quickly plots out associated images
and concepts. Mind mapping was
developed by Tony Buzan, a popular
psychology author, who has promoted
his method through publications and
workshops. Although Buzan
delineated specific rules for mind
mapping, such as using a different
color for each branch of the diagram,
his method is employed more loosely
and intuitively by countless designers,
writers, and educators.”
k r i s s i x e na k i s , from e l le n lu p ton's gr a ph ic de s ign t h i n k i ng,
For more information on this title, see page 19

â&#x20AC;&#x153;By inventorying the effects of change
in a playful and accessible vein that,
though couched in the phototypographical vernacular of the present,
is squarely aimed at you and your
everyday life, the book manages both
to entertain and to initiate a process
of cognitive retooling. To this end, it
demands of readers a nonlinear
approach to reading, based on the
very forms of verbal-visual pattern
recognition that McLuhan believed
essential to survival and success in the
second half of the twentieth century.â&#x20AC;?
j e ffr ey t. s c h na pp, from t h e e lectr ic i n for m at ion age b o ok,
For more information on this title, see page 37

11

“M. F. K. Fisher made a rare public
appearance—one of her last—a
conversation in front of a live
audience: a post-event supper on the
stage to honor and please her. The
menu included some of her professed
favorite things to eat: oysters and hot
sausages. The stage was set with
extravagant quantities of roses grown
by her friend Ray Redell. As for
imagery, I had only to think of the
grace and beauty of Mary Frances in
her last years, and how some roses
produce striking scarlet hips, still
stunning after the blooms have gone
and winter approaches.”
patr ic i a c u rta n, from me n us for c h e z pa n i s s e ,
For more information on this title, see page 15

[13]
New Year’s Eve 1986}

-

one and only time, and the feather was intended to add a sense
of extravagance and glamour to the festivities.
Mouth-watering drama was supplied by the sight of suckling
dining room has an open kitchen, one end of the small dining

early hours of a Sunday morning a smouldering coal in a wood
rebuilt to include a large brick hearth in an alcove just inside the

on the back wall of the hearth, spit roasting became part of the
from the grill and roasts turning on the spit are exciting elements
of the ambiance of the dining room.

26

27

[103]
A Marriage Feast for Peggy & Robert}
Peggy and Robert have a storybook romance. Both of a certain
age with full lives already behind them, they were living in different cities and not looking for anyone. At the urging of mutual
friends, they agreed to be introduced, and fell madly in love.
They knew very quickly that they would marry and begin a new
life together, and they are the envy of their friends for their utter
devotion to one another.
Branches of rosemary (symbol of fidelity and remembrance)
form the heart. I cut and printed two blocks, light and dark
green, and added the color to the blossoms and stems by hand
with watercolor.

   ;  ;  ;  

155

154

[28]
Parsi New Year’s Eve}
Niloufer Ichaporia King, author and anthropologist, cooks her
fabulous Parsi New Year’s feasts at Chez Panisse every year and
this one was the first. Niloufer has a collection of small, footed
tin trays from her native Bombay. They are perforated with little
holes that form designs of auspicious symbols. The little trays
are filled with chalk and their designs are stencilled on the sides
of entryways as a traditional welcome to guests. (The fish on
the menu are derived from them.) The stencil designs began on
the sidewalk outside the restaurant and continued up the front
steps to the entrance. There were fragrant garlands of blossoms
of tuberose, marigold, and gardenia over every doorway, and an
intoxicating aroma of spices and frankincense.
I found a handmade paper from India for the menu, and
Niloufer’s husband, David King (brilliant mad scientist), volunteered to formulate a dye from fresh tumeric to color it. We
set up in my studio and dipped each sheet into a tray of dye
and spread them out to dry on every available surface. The color
was intense and beautiful, but not fast, it has faded around the
edges. The dye was also extremely fragrant. The studio pleasantly
smelled of tumeric for months. The title at the top translates as
Happy New Year, and it is printed in the auspicious color of red,
as is the pomegranate, a symbol of wealth and good fortune.

   ;  ;  ;   

48

14

49

Forthcoming Titles

|

Fall 2011

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

Menus for Chez Panisse
The Art and Letterpress of Patricia Curtan
Patricia Curtan, with a foreword by Alice Waters
Chez Panisse, a small restaurant in Berkeley, California,
opened its doors in the summer of 1971. For forty
years, the restaurant and its founder, legendary chef
Alice Waters, has had a profound influence on food,
farming, cooking, and dining around the world. In the
beginning, Waters saw the beauty and aesthetic of fine
printing as a way to communicate—at the outset of
the diners’ experience—the care and attention given to
the preparation of their dinner. Berkeley-based artist
Patricia Curtan began hand printing menus for the
restaurant during its early years, while employed as
a cook in the Chez Panisse kitchen. Curtan’s menus,
works of art in their own right, capture the unique
spirit of the famous restaurant with letterpress and
linoleum-block prints on beautiful paper. In Menus for
Chez Panisse, Curtan presents four decades of menus—
including dinners for special guests such as Julia Child,
Hillary Clinton, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and James
Beard—with notes about the menus, the artwork, the
occasions, and, of course, the food.
• The visual world of Chez Panisse will inspire anyone
interested in cooking, fine dining, letterpress, or
hand-printed art
• Includes wonderful anecdotes about famous guests such
as Julia Child, James Beard, Wendell Berry, Marion
Cunningham, M. F. K. Fisher, John Cage, Mikhail
Baryshnikov, and former First Lady Hillary Clinton

Also Available . . .

• Ends with an illustrated look at the author’s printing
process. A selection of her linoleum blocks are scattered
throughout the book

The Toaster Project
Or a heroic attempt to build a simple electric appliance
from scratch
Thomas Thwaites
* or a heroic attempt to

“Hello, my name is Thomas Thwaites, and I have made
a toaster.” So begins The Toaster Project, the author’s
nine-month-long journey from his local appliance store
to remote mines in the UK to his mother’s backyard,
where he creates a crude foundry. Along the way, he
learns that an ordinary toaster is made up of 404 separate parts, that the best way to smelt metal at home is
by using a method found in a fifteenth-century treatise,
and that plastic is almost impossible to make from
scratch. In the end, Thwaites’s homemade toaster—
a haunting and strangely beautiful object—cost 250
times more than the toaster he bought at the store and
involved close to two thousand miles of travel to some
of Britain’s remotest locations. The Toaster Project may
seem foolish, even insane. Yet, Thwaites’s quixotic tale,
told with self-deprecating wit, helps us reflect on the
costs and perils of our cheap consumer culture, and in
so doing reveals much about the organization of the
modern world.

build a simple electric appliance
from scratch

Thomas Thwaites

• Thwaites’s toaster construction process is illustrated
from beginning (dismantling of a cheap toaster) to end
(final homemade toaster that, if not toasts, at least
warms a slice of bread)
• Includes e-mails he sent to experts in various fields and
conversations with the BP press office and Professor Jan
Cilliers, the Chair in Mineral Processing at the Royal
School of Mines

Also Available . . .

• Explores timely environmental and social issues in a
playful and accessible manner

How
HowtotoDefine
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Most design
Most design
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projects
start with
starta with
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and clients
and clients
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14

GRAPHIC
14 GRAPHIC
DESIGNDESIGN
THINKING
THINKING

15

Defining
the Problem

Key

Wall

Doorbell

Roof
Mailbox

Door

Door Knob

Sleeping
Human

Home (visual)

Interview with Charlie Rubenstein

Shopping Cart
Sleeping Bag

Sign

Charity Logo

Street

Intersection

Homeless (visual)
Hand Drawn

Childish Logo

Paired with his body language, Charlie’s
comments showed that he was dissatisfied
with the current state of homeless services
but also recognized their value.

HOME

If we are talking about 3419 as an organization,

Trustworthy

LESS

Home Logo

where do you see it five years from now?

Homeless Logo

in the city. I don’t want to do it from a nonprofit, third

Hotel/Resort

Believe

Real Estate

party level, I want to do it from the inside out.

Main Visual

My biggest problem with Baltimore’s homeless

Effective Logo

services, or whatever you want to call it, is that they don’t

(for teenager)

Sample Logo
Home
Human

go very deep. There isn’t enough reach. For me, it isn’t
that they are doing it wrong, there just needs to be a new

Fashionable
Eye Catching

way to do it.

Culture
Fresh

associated images and concepts.
Mind mapping was developed by Tony Buzan, a popular psychology

On the theory of mind mapping,
see Tony Buzan and Barry Buzan,
The Mind Map Book: How to Use
Radiant Thinking to Maximize
Your Brain’s Untapped Potential
(New York: Plume, 1996).

Here, Charlie started talking more quickly
and with more animation in his tone and
body language, indicating his passion for
treating homeless people like real people
instead of just a number.

Although Buzan delineated specific rules for mind mapping, such as using a
different color for each branch of the diagram, his method is employed more

02 Branch out. Create a web of
associations around the core phrase
or image. If you like, use simple
pictures as well as words.

loosely and intuitively by countless designers, writers, and educators. Ferran
Mitjans and Oriol Armengou of Toormix, a design firm in Barcelona, call the
technique “a cloud of ideas.” Krissi Xenakis

03 Organize. The main branches
of your map can represent categories
such as synonyms, antonyms,
homonyms, related compound words,
clichés, stock phrases, and so on.
Try using a different color for each
branch you develop.

GRAPHIC DESIGN THINKING

its biggest problem is that it’s singular and won’t
work for everybody. The biggest problem is that, even
institutionally, we are treating people as numbers. We

I want to create a people-based program.
Because we are talking about people, and there are

CAN

WANT

ARE

Livestrong
Pepsi Refresh
online

in-person
Product Red

so many different kinds of them. So, what if we tried to

six-month qualitative research study where we actually

Tom’s Shoes

continuous

go out and interview over five hundred homeless people.
And not just one time but over a period of time, so we
can understand who these people are.

8

GRAPHIC DESIGN THINKING

Brand Matrix. This diagram shows relationships among
different social change campaigns. Some are single events,
while others take place continuously. Some happen online,
others, in person. See more on Brand Matrix, page 42.

Brainstorming. By focusing the campaign on what
homeless people have and not what they materially lack,
designers chose “can,” “want” and “are” as the voice of the
project. See more on Brainstorming, page 16.

THE DESIGN PROCESS

9

Not Like Grandma. Here, traditional quilting patterns
have nourished visual imagery that is both graphic
and ripe with personal voice. In these reconstructed
illustrations, complex patterns nest within simple shapes
to re-create a crafted vocabulary. The shape and color
palettes were inspired by memories of family quilts made
by grandmothers, great aunts, and church quilting circles.
Design: Christopher Clark.

How to Start a Visual Diary
01 Define parameters. How
regular are the entries? Will you
work in a journal or post online? Will
there be a theme to your diary or
will it roam untamed? Ask yourself
questions. Experiment with new
media and shelved ideas.

Do it every day.

your routine and make something pretty. Designing something new every
day can be as healthy for the creative mind as eating fruits and vegetables is
for the body. Drawn-out projects stuffed with endless phases, revisions, and
brainstorming sessions can rapidly degrade into over-cooked solutions and
aimless theory. Sometimes, a big spoonful of sweet, unrefined creation can

02 Stick to the rules. Big
projects tend to dominate your
schedule. Free yourself by dedicating
a little time each day to making
something. Fifteen minutes of
unguided creativity could solve a
month’s worth of overthinking.

be the perfect remedy for opening up a stubborn mental block. By making
beautiful things on a daily basis, you can build a library of small and simple
ideas that can blossom into ambitious projects later. Making something
gorgeous can be painless and fulfilling. Hydrate your mind with small pleasures
reminiscent of the doodles and sketchbook pages that first got you excited
about graphic design. Christopher Clark

18

23

event-driven
Race for the Cure

are treating people as a genre, as if they are faceless,

understand who each of these people are? Where they

A Month of Type. Making a new
typographic work each day for a month
is a workout for the eye and mind.
Design: Christopher Clark.

Visual Diary
There’s only one salvation from the grind of a never-ending project: break

04 Subdivide. Each main branch
can feed smaller subcategories.
Work quickly, using the process
to free up your mind. For example,
the idea of discovery can take you
from the names of inventors and
inventions to the physical senses.
HOW TO DEFINE PROBLEMS

Sketches: Supisa Wattanasansanee

100

People often need time to get to the bottom
line. After forty-five minutes, we were finally
able to hear the core of what the client was
trying to achieve with the 3419 campaign.

How to Make a Mind Map
01 Focus. Place one element at
the center of the page.

author who has promoted his method through publications and workshops.

22

Hand

Humorous
(remarkable)

you could read in a lifetime....So, if you have a policy,

Design: Lauren P. Adams

heartless. Like they are just 3419.

subject area. Starting with a central term or idea, the designer quickly plots out

Abstract

Ambiguous
(memorable)

Seriousness
(touching)

Youth Organization

done. There are more quantitative studies around than

Mind Mapping
allows designers to quickly explore the scope of a given problem, topic, or

Human Aspect

Furniture

Hardware Store

Can you give me a specific example of a new way?

Also called “radiant thinking,” mind mapping is a form of mental research that

Seriousness Logo

3419

Well, I want to redesign the way we treat homelessness

Sure. There needs to be more qualitative research
Design: Alex Roulette

Colorful

Local (small)

Organization (big)

Interviewing. Designers talk to clients
and other stakeholders to learn more
about people’s perceived wants and needs.
Shown here are highlighted excerpts from
a videotaped conversation with Charlie
Rubenstein, the chief organizer of the 3419
homeless awareness campaign. See more on
Interviewing, page 26.

15

GRAPHIC DESIGN THINKING

03 Work in a series. If a certain
medium or method excites you, try
it again the next day and the next.
Make each entry a thoughtful followup to the last. That’s how little things
grow into bigger projects.
04 Share your work. Create
a blog or Flickr account. Sign up
for an exhibition at a coffee shop.
Get friends and coworkers to join
in on the noodling. Be inspired by
the weight of an audience’s gaze.
(Of course, you don’t have to show
everything you make.)

05 Keep going. The more stuff
you make, the more valuable the
endeavor becomes. Build up a
graphic arsenal. When the really
tough problems declare war on
your sanity, you will be prepared to
defend yourself.
06 Harvest the good stuff.
Glance through your journal when
it’s time to tackle bigger projects.
You may have already found a useful
solution or a viable idea.

HOW TO GET IDEAS

Forthcoming Titles

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Fall 2011

101

164

GRAPHIC DESIGN THINKING

HOW TO CREATE FORM

165

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

Design Briefs

Graphic Design Thinking
Beyond Brainstorming
Ellen Lupton, editor
Creativity is more than an inborn talent. It is a
hard-earned skill that, like all skills, improves with
practice. Graphic Design Thinking explores a variety of
techniques—from quick, seat-of-the-pants approaches
to more formal research methods—for stimulating fresh
thinking and solving design problems. Brainstorming
techniques are grouped around the three main phases
of the design process: defining problems, getting
ideas, and creating form. Visual demonstrations and
case studies show the design processes and solutions
at work. Featuring best-selling author Ellen Lupton’s
hands-on, accessible approach to instructional writing,
this most recent addition to the Design Briefs series will
help designers create projects that satisfy clients, users,
and themselves.
• Includes discussions with leading professionals,
including Art Chantry, Ivan Chermayeff, Jessica
Helfand, Steven Heller, Abott Miller, Christoph
Niemann, Paula Scher, and Martin Venezky
• Brainstorming is a big topic in business and product
design circles, but little has been written on this topic
with graphic designers in mind
• Smart, compact, reader-friendly, visually inspiring
introduction to the graphic design process

The World
1998
56.5" x 77"
acrylic on canvas
next spread
The World (detail)

14

15

46

47

India
2007
98.5" x 91.5"
acrylic on canvas
right
India (detail)

50

20

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Fall 2011

51

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

Paula Scher MAPS
Paula Scher
In the early 1990s, celebrated graphic designer Paula
Scher (Make It Bigger, 2002) began painting maps of
the world as she sees it. The larger her canvases grew,
the more expressionistic her geographical visions
became. Displaying a powerful command of image
and type, Scher brilliantly transformed the surface
area of our world. Paintings as tall as twelve feet depict
continents, countries, and cities swirling in torrents
of information and undulating with colorful layers
of hand-painted boundary lines, place-names, and
provocative cultural commentary. Collected here for
the first time, Paula Scher MAPS presents thirty-nine of
Scher’s obsessively detailed, highly personal creations.
• Book’s dust jacket unfolds into a map print suitable for
framing; many of the maps in this book have sold for
thousands of dollars
• Includes twenty-one paintings, four installations, and
fourteen drawings and prints
• Includes maps at all scales ranging in scope from the
whole world, to maps of India, the Middle East, and
Japan, to Washington, DC, Tokyo, and New York City
• Includes a foreword by Simon Winchester (The Map that
Changed the World, 2001) and an introductory essay by
Paula Scher
• Paula Scher’s maps have appeared in other best-selling
Princeton titles, including You Are Here and The Map as
Art (Katharine Harmon, 2003 and 2009), where one of
her paintings graces the cover

Houses 2
Tom Kundig
Our 2006 monograph Tom Kundig: Houses was an
instant critical and commercial success. Over the past
five years, Seattle-based Kundig has continued his
meteoric rise, collecting numerous awards, including
the 2008 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for
Architecture Design. Tom Kundig: Houses 2 features
seventeen residential projects, ranging from a fivehundred-square-foot cabin in the woods to a house
carved into and built out of solid rock. In his new
work, Kundig continues to strike a balance between
raw and refined and modern and warm, creating
inviting spaces with a strong sense of place. The houses
seamlessly incorporate his signature inventive details,
rich materials, and stunning sites—from the majestic
Northwestern forest to the severe high desert.
• Tom Kundig: Houses is one of our most successful
monographs, selling more than ten thousand copies
• Large format monograph is filled with evocative
photographs as well as plans and detail drawings
• Features a foreword by architect Juhani Pallasmaa and
an essay by Daniel Friedman, Dean of the University of
Washington College of Built Environments

Vanna Venturi House, Robert Venturi, 1962-64
Breaking with the starkness of modern architecture
and Meis van der Rhoe’s statement that “Less is
more,” Robert Venturi argued the case for eclecticism in architecture by declaring that “Less is a
bore.” In the small house he built for his mother
he experimented with many of the ideas he would
write about later in his influential book, Complexity
and Contradiction in Modern Architecture. These
ideas included the use of complexity, ambiguity,
and contradiction.

MR Chair, Meis van der Rhoe, 1927

Chimney top is to the
left of the center line

The house is at first simple and boldly symmetrical
in its reflected gable roof line, centered chimney,
and dominant square entry. Yet the eye is fascinated with the off-center chimney top, asymmetric
window arrangement, and the presence of a rectangular hole that is punched through the center of
the structure. The strong diagonals of the roof and
right angles of the windows are brought together
in harmony with the single artistic stroke of a circular arc.

Square

Square

During the mid 1920s Meis van der Rhoe was
influenced by others who were experimenting with
the new technology of tubular steel in furniture
design. Metal was not a new material in furniture
design and iron had been used in mid-nineteenth
century furniture for cast iron garden furniture,
rocking chairs, and tubular steel for children’s furniture and hospital beds. Metal was cost-effective,
readily bent, and easily cleaned. It was rarely
used for home interiors because of the aesthetic

sensibilities of Victorian tastes for upholstery with
carved and embellished wood, and because of the
coolness of the metal to the touch. What was new
was the simplicity and geometric style of the way
van der Rhoe used the metal.
By the early 1920s at the Bauhaus Marcel Breuer
had experimented with tubular steel in the design
of tables, chairs, desks and storage uinits. In 1925
as the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau,

Breuer designed a range of furnishings for the new
buildings, with the most iconic and lasting design
being the ground breaking tubular steel chair, the
elegant Wassily chair.
Meis was aware of Breuer’s work and also that
of Mart Stam who had designed a cantilever chair
frame of right angles from straight lengths of gas
pipe and elbow connectors. Meis’ chair frame was
cantilevered, similar to Stam’s, but instead of right

angles the chair frame used a curve of tensioned
tubular steel. This curve created an elastic frame
that bent with flexible tension and provided comfort without the addition of an upholstered cushion.
The chair was available in leather and canvas which
were laced on with ties, and cane upholstery that
was woven around the frame. In the armchair version the caning was wrapped around the arms so
that the arms of the user did not touch cold metal.

Square

Center
Center
Line

Proportions of the Vanna Venturi House
The proportions of the house, with the exclusion
of the chimney top, are 1:2. The main proportions
of the house including the roof line and doorway
are symmetrical.

Center Of Square
Center Of Arm Circle
Center Of Frame
Circles and Alignments
The circle segments above the entrance
give some clues as to how the various
elements of the house relate to each
other. A series of circles, all with the
same center point, touch on the architectural elements.

1860, Thonet Rocking
Chair (right)
The frame of is similar
to the Iron Rocking Chair
and made with bentwood.
The MR chair was at one
time manufactured by
Thonet.

Center of
Circles

Bathing at Asnières, Georges-Pierre Seurat, 1883
Georges-Pierre Seurat was classically educated as
an artist at one of Europe’s premier fine art academies, L’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. The academy
was the powerful center of fine art education and
held a tight monopoly on exhibitions and work
selected for exhibition. Admission to the academy
provided an entry into the fine art world and likely
future prosperity for its students. The academy’s
demanding curriculum emphasized study of classi-

cal Greek and Roman art and architecture which
included mathematical principles. It is here that
Seurat learned about visual organization and proportioning systems including the golden section.

exhibition by the established Paris Salon and
prompted Seurat to join other artists in creating the
Société des Artistes Indépendants. Later, the painting was exhibited with four hundred others in the
Société but due to its massive size was hung in the
exhibition beer hall where it met with scant attention, tepid reviews, and criticism for the commonplace subject matter of working men enjoying a
swim on a hot summer day.

Bathing at Asnières was Seurat’s first monumental
work as a painter, and was completed when he was
just 24 years old. The canvas is a massive 79" x 118"
(201 cm x 300 cm). The painting was rejected for

Intrigued with color and its application to the canvas,
Seurat experimented with a painting technique he
had developed of crosshatching, which he termed
balayé. This technique involves a flat brush applying
paint with larger strokes in the foreground and
smaller strokes in the background, thereby increasing the sense of depth and perspective. Later,
Seurat would develop another technique, pointilism,
for his second and final masterwork, A Sunday on La
Grande Jatte.

+

=

+

=

Construction of the Golden Section Dynamic Rectangle
The golden section dynamic rectangle consists of four overlapping golden section rectangles. Beginning with a
single rectangle it is copied and reflected vertically, and then copied and reflected horizontally.
58

59

Golden Section Dynamic
Rectangle
The golden section dynamic
rectangle placed over the
painting shows that the focal
point, the seated figure, is
placed at the square of the
golden section rectangle.
The horizon is at the square
of the reciprocal golden section rectangle and the diagonals touch the angle of the
seated figure’s neck and
arms, the back of the figure
in the water, and both the
reclining figure and seated
figures in the background.

Construction of the Golden Section Rectangle

Taliesin Barrel Chair, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1904, 1937
Similar to Mies van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright
designed furniture specifically for his buildings.
Both architects believed in honoring the architecture with furnishings appropriate for the unique
style and harmonizing the interior with the exterior.
In the early twentieth century Frank Lloyd Wright
was designing and building modern homes in a
style that hadn’t been seen before. Flowing horizontal lines, abstracted geometry, and simplicity in

the architecture required furnishings with a similar
aesthetic. Many of the furnishings available at
that time were ornate and inappropriate for such
modern architecture. Influenced by the Arts and
Craft movement, the design of the furnishings
gave Wright the opportunity to fully acknowledge
the architecture with the interior furnishings as
well as a venue for increasing his fees and profits
through the additional commission of furniture
design services.

The original Barrel chair was designed in 1904 and
was said to be a favorite of Wright. The original chair
had arms that flared up at the ends, a slightly thicker
base, and thicker and higher back. In 1937, when
Wright was designing, Wingspread, a house for
Herbert Johnson of Johnson Wax, he needed chairs
for the dining room and he revisited and refined
the Barrel chair. The proportions were adjusted, the
arms simplified, and the base was tapered resulting
in a more streamlined and cohesive design.

The golden section rectangle is a ratio of the Divine
Proportion. The Divine Proportion is derived from the
division of a line segment into two segments such
that the ratio of the whole segment, AB, to the longer
part, AC, is the same as the ratio of the longer part,
AC, to the shorter part, CB. This gives a ratio of
approximately 1.61803 to 1, which can also be
expressed 1+√5 .

Many of Wright’s furniture designs involved
straight planes with angles, and the Barrel chair
stands out because of the curved back and use
of the circle. The cushion punches through the
seat and can be seen above and below the wood
frame. From the side view the seat circle cantilevers beyond the arms, reminiscent of a number of
Wright’s buildings. The chair back slats continue
from the back support to the base giving an effect
of enveloping and shielding the user.

The Divine Proportion:
A

C

B

AB = AC
AC
CB

2

Golden Section Spiral Construction
By using the golden section subdivision
diagram a golden section spiral can be
constructed . Use the length of the sides
of the squares of the subdivisions as a
radius of a circle . Strike and connect arcs
for each square in the diagram .

1937 Refined Barrel Chair
The refined barrel chair has a simplified frame and
more pleasing proportions. The flared arms have been
simplified, back support adjusted to be narrower and
less thick, and the base tapered.

90º
45º

45º

30º

B

2 . Draw a diagonal from the midpoint A
of one of the sides to an opposite corner
B . This diagonal becomes the radius of
an arc that extends beyond the square to
C . The smaller rectangle and the square
become a golden section rectangle .

Diameter of Cushion

Diameter of Cushion

Diameter of Cushion

Golden Section, Square Construction
Method
1 . Begin with a square .

1904 Original Barrel Chair
The original barrel chair was heavier
and less streamlined. The back support
was thicker as were the wood slats. The
base used an additional wide molding.

The golden section rectangle is unique in that when
subdivided its reciprocal is a smaller proportional rectangle and the area remaining after subdivision is a
square. Because of the special property of subdividing into a reciprocal rectangle and a square, the
golden section rectangle is known as the whirling
square rectangle. The proportionally decreasing
squares can produce a spiral by using a radius the
length of the sides of the square.

A

24

Barrel Chair Proportions
The refined barrel chair has pleasing
proportions. Both the front view and
side view fit in a golden section rectangle. The height of the chair is twice
the diameter of the cushion, and the
repeated wood slats terminate at the top
of the cushion circle.

Golden Section Rectangle

3 . The golden section rectangle can be
subdivided . When subdivided the rectangle produces a smaller proportional golden section rectangle which is the reciprocal, and a square area remains after subdivision . This square area can also be
called a gnomon .

C

Reciprocal
Square

Golden

(Gnomon)

Rectangle

25

Proportional Squares
The squares from the golden section
subdivision diagram are in golden section proportion to each other .

4 . The process of subdivision can endlessly continue, again and again, producing smaller proportional rectangles and
squares .

30º

120º

24

Forthcoming Titles

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Fall 2011

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

Design Briefs

Geometry of Design
Second Edition, Revised and Updated
Studies in Proportion and Composition
Kimberly Elam
The very first volume in our acclaimed Design Briefs
series is now available in a revised and updated second
edition. Geometry of Design is a comprehensive overview
of the principles of proportion and composition. Using
detailed diagrams and vellum overlays, author Kimberly
Elam clearly illustrates how naturally occurring systems
of measurement create symmetry, order, and visual
balance in a broad spectrum of successful modern
designs. From Bauhaus posters to Mies van der Rohe’s
Barcelona Chair and the Volkswagen Beetle, Geometry
of Design illuminates fundamental design concepts
while offering valuable insight into the methodology of
history’s great artists, designers, and architects.
• Features thirty-six pages of new content, including
analysis of paintings by Albert Baertsoen, Francisco
Goya, Georges Seurat, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec;
furniture designs by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Mies
van der Rohe, Michael Thonet, and Frank Lloyd Wright;
graphic design by A. M. Cassandre, Otl Aicher, and
FHK Henrion; and architecture by Mies, Philip Johnson,
and Robert Venturi
• Vellum overlays allow readers to layer diagrams of
proportions directly over the object being discussed
• An essential cornerstone of any designer’s library that
has remained a best seller for ten years, with more than
fifty thousand copies sold

GoogleType
Apply existing tools in new and fresh ways by working
with the online platform Google Docs. In this twophased project, MICA students co-created alphabets,
working simultaneously on Google Docs documents—
text, spreadsheet, or drawing. Once the co-creative
stage was completed, each participant downloaded
the alphabets and imported them into CS applications
as vector-based art. They used the co-created letterforms to design posters promoting a new book on
media theory, Program or Be Programmed, by Douglas
Rushkoff. In this phase of individual work, students
studied composition, color, and hierarchy.

TRY THIS PROJECT

Use Google Docs to co-create an alphabet of lettering
with a group of participants, working remotely, yet
simultaneously, on the same file.
Once your alphabet is completed, use the type to
design a poster for a book of your choice. Start by
developing three sketches. Consider hierarchy, color,
and composition, and balance the co-created lettering
with a strong but simple supporting font.

(left) Project Projects created the
exhibition design and graphics
for Into the Open: Positioning
Practice in collaboration with the
design firm Saylor + Sirola. This
exhibition, focusing on socially
engaged architectural practices,
was a restaging of the U.S. Pavilion for the Venice Architectural
Biennale 2008, curated by Aaron
Levy and William Menking. Project Projects developed a fresh
design and presentation for this
New York version. Transforming
the exhibition’s gallery space
at Parsons The New School for
Design into an open forum, they
encouraged visitor participation
by covering the space with green
chalkboard paint.

Fig 13 ART IN GENERAL, 2009
www.projectprojects.com

(below) This print-on-demand
book series documents artist
projects produced for Art in
General’s New Commissions
program. The inexpensive
production, through the online
self-publishing site called
createspace.com, made the
seventeen-volume series possible and created interesting
design limitations.

Fig 14 RE-SHUFFLE, 2006
www.projectprojects.com

(above) Working with twelve
graduate students from Bard
College’s Center for Curatorial
Studies, Project Projects created
this catalog and exhibition. ReShuffle: Notions of an Itinerant
Museum explores the responses
of forty-seven artists and writers
to the curators’ prompt regarding
the relevance of cultural institutions. A far cry from the traditional passive gallery experience,
visitors assemble their own portable exhibition from the provided
screen-printed boxes, stacks of
cards, and mailing labels.

26

Forthcoming Titles

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Fall 2011

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

Design Briefs

Participate
Designing with User-Generated Content
Helen Armstrong and Zvezdana Stojmirovic
Foreword by Ellen Lupton
Creativity is no longer the sole territory of the designer.
User-driven design has never been easier for the
public to generate and distribute. Users of websites
such as Flickr, Threadless, WordPress, YouTube, Etsy,
and Lulu approach design with the expectation that
they will be able to fill in the content. How will such
a fundamental shift toward bottom-up creation affect
the design industry? Participate considers historical
and contemporary models of creation that provide
ideas for harnessing user-generated content through
participatory design. The authors discuss how designers
can lead the new breed of widely distributed amateur
creatives rather than be overrun by them.
• Challenges designers to transform audiences into users
and completed layouts into open-ended systems
• Four chapters—Community, Modularity, Flexibility, and
Technology—explore the various approaches to
participatory design through critical essays, case
studies, exercises, and interviews with leading designers
in the field
• A companion website for educators will provide tools for
bringing participatory projects into the classroom. It
will include creative briefs for student projects,
handouts, and lectures, as well as relevant texts written
by other designers

Finding the r ight Fit
How do you select people for your organization? At Granet and
Associates, we find the following questions helpful during the
interview process.

6
5

n eeds coaching

n o employees should
fall here

4

x

Bu sin ess a n d

I’ve said that the staff in the bottom-left quadrant should be
let go, but what do you do with the people in the upper left and
bottom right? Those who fall in the upper left and who get the
culture of your firm could be coached to help them improve their
skill set (and move into the top right). The people in the bottom right
are highly skilled, but they just don’t fit in that well. People who fall
in the bottom–right quadrant are far more difficult to coach, since
it’s an incompatibility issue based on personality.
I use this tool to help firms evaluate their staff. A lot about
the firm’s culture is revealed in where the majority of their staff
falls on the chart. The firms whose staff mostly lands in the upper
right are typically successful and high performing. Firms whose
staff mostly falls in the bottom right tend to be sweat shops. They
hire people for their qualifications, not their fit. These firms tend
to produce a lot of work efficiently, but since the employees are
not very synergistic, they tend to stay by themselves, and the work
product tends not to improve as rapidly as employees who work
well together. Firms with most of their staff in the top-left quadrant
tend to get along well but get very little accomplished. They love
working together, but they tend not to be as successful.
During economic downturns in our industry, this tool can
be particularly helpful in evaluating whom to retain. This is hard
because when you’re forced to lay off staff you often are forced to
lay off people you really don’t want to lose. This tool helps you
evaluate the right people to keep. F i gu r e 3

x

ski l l

3

1.

2

2. How familiar are you with our work?

x
Fi g ure 3

1
1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

C u lt u r e

3. Do you know anyone who works here?

Culture/s kill chart,
second phase:
evaluating your staff

4. Why are you leaving your current employment?

115

114

M en t

T im e lin e
for Bringing in a

n ew proje Ct

initial Contact for a n ew project (w eek
r esearch potential Client

o ne )

prepare Materials for interview

Meet with potential Client (up to three weeks

Marketing
One lesson I learned years ago while at Gensler—and one that I
cannot emphasize enough—is that you need to market and get your
name out there when you’re the busiest. This is a hard concept for
people to grasp because they’re fearful that they won’t be able to
handle any more work when they’re busy. It seems hard to believe
that you should seek new work when you’re in the thick of designing
and building your projects. But if you think about the lead time
required to bring in new work—usually several months ahead of
when you’ll be billing a good portion of the fees and keeping your
staff busy—you can quickly understand that if you wait until you
“need” the work, it’s too late. The timeline may look something like
this (depending on the scope and size of the project): f igu r es 1 a n d 2
It takes a couple of months to be courted by a client, another
month to negotiate the contract, and then a couple of months to
get through the project’s early stages (concept, schematics) where
someone other than the principal and maybe one other person is
working on the project. Add that up, and it can be five months
before you’re actually working on the project. So it’s important to
always be looking for work.
For those firms that have built a great reputation and are
highly sought after by clients, they may have the luxury of telling
a client when they can start work on a project. This gives them the

process Can t ake a nywhere from 12-20 w eeks
Before You a re a ble t o invoice a Client

f igu r e 1

process for attracting,
interviewing, and landing a
typical project

82

I’ve found that some people simply forget
that the design business is essentially a
service business. Except for the designers
who sell products, most of us design
something on paper that someone else will
ultimately build. We need to remember that
the two most important aspects of running
a service business are our staff is our
number one asset and how we treat
people is the most significant part of
protecting that asset. Whether it’s how you
treat your employees or how your
employees treat each other, or how you and
your staff treat your clients and how they
(clients) treat you, it all sets the tone for
your practice. If you surround yourself with
people trying to build a career rather than
just having a job, you’ll both be mutually
served.

Chapter 4

human
resources

1

2

the foundati on of a desi gn proc e ss

t h e fou n dat ion of a design process

f in a n Cia l Ma n age

Many people ask me the difference between marketing and
public relations. Marketing is the research and pursuit of work
available in the marketplace. Public relations focuses on exposing
your firm to as many targeted people as desired. It can be outreach
to shelter magazines, bloggers, trend articles, or any other source
to introduce the firm to the audience you seek. To be successful at
either of these efforts, you need to have a strategy. In marketing it
may be how many past and new contacts you’re going to target in
a given time frame. In public relations it might be the number of
projects you’ll get photographed and published in the same time
period.

th e fo u n datio n o f a design pr o c ess

I N T E RV I E W W I T H

Michael Graves

Who inspired you when

Kg : d o you think that the general public
thinks that competitions are sort of a

galleries, and a concert hall. i did a scheme
for that, but it didn’t get built because a

OF MICHAEL GRAVES AND ASSOCIATES

Keit H gR anet:

you were thinking about being an architect

process in f argo, n orth d akota, for an
art center that consisted of a museum,

mg: i think it’s kind of a view of architecture

golf course was built instead. t he art center

as a commodity, something to pick and

was so heavily published everywhere

choose, like a pair of socks. i like a blue

that i got a lot of lectures at various

one. i like a green one. i like a brown one. i

who have done nothing but criticize other

places. i went to speak, i think to the aia

suppose people think it’s more equitable.

architects, and there are architects like

in portland, and afterward the person

Many people don’t have the experience

and building your practice?

philip j ohnson, who have done nothing but

who was the professional adviser for the

of working with architects, and they don’t

mic Hael

support them.

competition said, “What would we have to

know how to do it.

wasn’t by choice, it just happened that

do to get somebody like you to enter the

way because i went to the u niversity of

Kg : early on in building your practice,

f argo competition?” i said, “a sk.” But it

gR ave S: a lot of people. it

meant that we had to put a team together

c incinnati as an undergraduate, which is
a cooperative school: we worked for two

necessity to give you the expertise to get

of builder/contractor/developer along with

months and went to school for two months,

more projects of the same type?

worked for two months, went to school for

mg: early on, i was asked to do a lot of

two months.
By the time i got to h arvard, i had

i meet people all the time, at various
gatherings, who say, “Well, we wanted the
kind of building you would do, but we knew
we couldn’t afford you. s o we went with

the architect.

j oe s mith, our neighbor, and asked him to

back porches and kitchen renovations.

Kg : So the art center was a design/build

that.” t hey never took the time to call up

What it led to was more kitchen

project?

and ask what we charge. t hey really don’t
know.

more experience than anybody else. i

renovations until my students called me

mg: Yes. part of that was my skill in—i will

the cubist kitchen king, and that just kept

take a little credit here—putting together

g ropius, but in r ome. i worked for g eorge

the doors open in the sixties. But i was still

a group of people i knew i could work

Kg : How would you identify the ideal

n elson in n ew York. g eorge was very

losing money.

with, and not try to do this whole building

client?

You have got to do a lot of these small
have to bang them out. i didn’t do that.

those friends today. g eorge was a furniture

i spent far too much time on them. But

designer and a graphic artist as well as an

they got published, and ultimately i got

architect. h e never personally marketed his

something else from these little pieces,

things the way we have.
t hen you had an architect like philip
j ohnson, who had done nothing but

mg: c lients have to be—to a certain

so i

a developer of shopping centers, whom i

because they would win awards. But it took

architects for doing a building that wasn’t

would come to you after the building is

a long, long time, and a lot of money to do

“modern,” as they wanted it to be.

built, and say, “o h my g od, i didn’t know

a fter the portland building, i was
included on a number of competitions:

just about money, timing, or design, but all

building (l ouisville, Kentucky 1982), which

of the facets that, he—or we could say ideal
clients—should care about.

hope of getting the commission but that it

we won. We hadn’t lost a competition at
that point. We’ve lost a lot since then, but

a younger architect. n ot so someone else

after other major stadiums.
Kg : d o you consider the portland project a

we were clearly on a roll. h aving to win

Kg : l ast question. How would you like to

competitions to build buildings was not the

be remembered?

best thing in the world for me, i mean, it

mg: i don’t think about that very much. My

that would allow him to work for less, and

turning point?

kept me poor because we were expending

mother once said that the important thing

also so that he could earn the experience

mg: c ertainly. But the only reason it was a

more money to make a better mouse trap

is to put more in than you take out. t hat’s

and perhaps learn something about doing

turning point is because we won. it was not

each time.

about it—make a contribution.

another building type. t here are architects

a competition but a three-stage interview

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gen Sle R

details, dimensions, and the character. n ot

c alifornia, that we won, and the h umana

would help establish credibility for going

S of de Sign companie

particular place, enhance a site or neighborhood, and be a
natural partner with the environment.” la Ke|flato

that you were proposing those kinds of

there was one in s an j uan c apistrano,

a stadium for the t exas r angers baseball
team, knowing that we didn’t have much

to him with a commission he might lose

S:

“l ake|f lato believes that architecture should respond to its

doors.” h e is present, and he cares about

We submitted to a competition to design

money on himself, he would recommend

Sign companie

“d esign can elevate the human spirit” Kaa de Sign

was thinking about. if somebody came

Forthcoming Titles

Sample vi Sion Statement

very carefully. h e is not somebody who

that. i suppose you don’t start out being

S of nonde

“t o make people happy” di Sne Y

met on the board of the Whitney Museum.

would lose money, but because a younger

28

Sample vi Sion Statement

h e is a client who pays attention. h e looks

to know what the younger generation

architect might have a business structure

Business plan

“t o be the most respected brand in the world” ame Rican eXpReSS

myself. i hadn’t built any city halls at that

emery r oth. We

support younger architects all his life. h e
was just one of those people who wanted

c ontents of a

“t o preserve and improve human life” meRc K

degree—savvy. i have one very good client,
it was a real family. i still have some of

Writing a Business
plan
When starting to write your business plan, you’ll want to begin
with three key elements: a vision statement, mission statement, and
your firm’s core values. A vision statement is the highest level of
purpose for your business. The vision is a lofty goal that most likely
will take your entire career to achieve. Someone once told me that
having a vision is like the stars: we’re better off for having them in
our lives, but we may never reach them.

look at your work and do something like

did work for a very short time for Walter

generous with me, and he liked me. t here

you’ll need a business plan. Some people believe that a business
plan is a magical tool to achieve your goals. It isn’t, but it can be
used as a road map to reach those goals. f igu r e 3

“t o create environments of an alternate reality, with compelling
emotional force” Jo Hn Saladino
“t he ultimate house of luxury now and forever” c Hanel

A mission statement is used to help you achieve your goals.
It sets the direction for you to reach your vision, for example,
“Our firm should be a place of growing and learning for all our
employees.” This means that to achieve your vision you’ll need to
support, nurture, and mentor your staff. Another example might
be that you want “an inspired environment to work in,” and this

24

f igu r e 3

25

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

The Business of Design
Balancing Creativity and Profitability

The
Busi ness

Keith Granet
Foreword by Art Gensler

of

Design

The Business of Design debunks the myth that business
sense and creative talent are mutually exclusive and,
unlike other lackluster business books, is written and
illustrated to captivate a visually thinking audience. For
nearly thirty years, consultant Keith Granet has helped
design professionals pursue their passion and turn a
profit. From billing to branding, client management to
marketing and licensing, The Business of Design reveals
the tools necessary to create and run a thriving design
business in today’s ultra-competitive marketplace.

• Six comprehensive chapters: Foundations of a design
business, Financial management, Marketing and public
relations, Human resources, Project management, and
Product development
• Includes interviews with architects and designers,
including Michael Graves, A. Eugene Kohn, Victoria
Hagan, and Richard Meier
• Inspired by Granet’s own course on running a successful
design practice at UCLA and his experience consulting
more than four hundred design firms

How to Be a
Graphic Designer
without Losing
Your Soul
978-1-56898-983-9
$24.95

9 781616 890186

The Wayfinding
Handbook
978-1-56898-769-9
$24.95

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No Nails, No Lumber
The Bubble Houses of Wallace Neff
Jeffrey Head
Imagine a house constructed in less than forty-eight
hours, without using lumber or nails, that is more
resistant to fire, earthquakes, and hurricanes than
any traditionally built structure. This may sound like
the latest development in prefab housing or green
architecture, but the design dates back to 1941 when
architect Wallace Neff (1895–1982) developed Airform
construction as a solution to the global housing crisis.
Best known for his elegant Spanish Colonial–revival
estates in Southern California, Neff had a private
passion for his dome-shaped “bubble houses” made of
reinforced concrete cast in position over an inflatable
balloon. No Nails, No Lumber shows the beauty
and versatility of Neff ’s design in new and vintage
photography, previously unpublished illustrations, and
archival material and ephemera.
• The first international survey of Neff ’s bubble houses
• While only one bubble house remains in America
(Pasadena, CA), the design was used for large housing
projects in Egypt, Brazil, and West Africa during the
1940s and 1950s
• Low-cost, low-impact housing solution is a precursor to
environmentally responsible, green architecture
• Encourages a reintroduction of Neff ’s Airform
technology, especially for use in disaster and
impoverished areas

Perched on a steep hillside in Berkeley hills with
a commanding view to the south and the west
of San Francisco Bay, is the Hagar House, a
Mediterranean villa built in 1928. The Hagars
wanted a house that “could capture the romantic
spirit of California” and said that Wurster’s first
sketch was “perfect almost to the finest detail.”1
The stark simplicity of the entrance court facade
belied the gracious and comfortable scale of the
interior spaces. The well-proportioned living room
with its vaulted, crisply detailed mahogany ceiling
and white plaster walls displayed Wurster’s sense
of simple elegance. The immaculate detailing is
characteristic of his tendency to pare away all the
unessential elements and “let things be expressed

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19 2 8

Hagar House

as they are.”2 Designed concurrently with the
Gregory’s farmhouse in Scott’s Valley, this was to
be a city house; a full-time residence, although
designed with minimal embellishments, it still was
clearly referential to Mediterranean architecture in
its massing details and material choices.
Most of the rooms had direct access to the
outdoors and natural light from at least two
sides. Despite the often-dark interior of traditional
Mediterranean architecture Wurster didn’t compromise the pleasurable qualities of the rooms to suit
a formal arrangement for the architecture. Gardens
credited to Lockwood deForest had outdoor garden
rooms that were an extension of the interior.3

Concurrent with the Gillespie House, this French
Regency townhouse was designed for two elderly
sisters and built in 1927; it was completed with the
addition of a design studio in a front wing in 1931.
In the original design, on Wurster’s insistence, the
entry, living room, and dining room were painted
a light green: “The entrance must have an appeal
that draws a warmth to the person coming in.”1
The addition in 1931 at the front of the property
enclosed a small formal garden court and also provided an arched passageway that allowed entrance
to the original entry at the living room wing. The
courtyard plan allowed the living room to open to
two private gardens and made this small house
seem expansive despite its confined site.
Landscaping by the owner and William Wurster
with “later advice by Lockwood deForest.”2

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The Houses of William Wurster
Frames for Living
Caitlin Lempres Brostrom and Richard C. Peters
Over the course of a career that spanned forty-five
years, William Wilson Wurster (1895–1973) designed
hundreds of residences up and down the West Coast.
Like Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, with whom Wurster
maintained a close professional exchange, Wurster
blends modernism with the vernacular. Wurster
described these homes as “frames for living”: spaces
that could be fully transformed by the occupant to
meet their needs and desires, well-designed canvases for
homemaking. Authors Caitlin Lempres Brostrom, AIA,
and Richard C. Peters, FAIA, draw upon extensive
historical research as well as personal relationships
with Wurster to tell the story of his career, including
both residential and institutional building. The Houses
of William Wurster features new and archival footage of
thirty-three of the architect’s best-known houses and
includes a foreword by Donlyn Lyndon.
• Wurster served as Dean of the School of Architecture
and Planning at MIT, and is regarded as the founder of
the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley,
currently housed in the Wurster Building
• Features never-before-seen artwork from newly
digitized archives featuring work by Ezra Stoller, Roger
Sturtevant, and Morley Baer, in addition to new
photography by Richard Barnes
• An early proponent of green building, Wurster believed
in practical construction and relied on local building
materials whenever possible

Also Available . . .

• Previous book on Wurster, An Everyday Modernism
(University of California Press, 1999), is now out of print

Oak
One Tree, Three Years, Fifty Paintings
Stephen Taylor
It was an exercise to learn how to see, to understand
just one thing in its greatest detail. Stephen Taylor came
across the 250-year-old tree while on a walk in Essex,
England, six years ago, shortly after the deaths of his
mother and close friend—a tragic time that brought
him back to painting and then to an obsession with
realism and color perception. He painted the same
oak scores of times over a period of three years, in
extremes of weather and light, at all times of day and
night. Oak is nature’s creed of endurance (the tree was
standing when Jane Austen was just a baby) and of one
man’s promise to find beauty in a painful world.
• Oak is both a meditation on nature and a tour de force
of artistic technique
• Oak collects Taylor’s single-minded pursuit, first made
famous in Alain de Botton’s book The Pleasures and
Sorrows of Work (Pantheon, 2009)

effective loosening-up can be achieved only by the most
sweeping and all-embracing use of the techniques of
photography, zincography, the electrotype, etc. The flex-

[name withheld at the parents’
request]
Champlain, New York

ibility and elasticity of these techniques bring with them
a new reciprocity between economy and beauty. With the
development of photo-telegraphy, which enables reproductions and accurate illustrations to be made instan-

the typophoto governs the tempo of
the new visual literature…
The twentieth century was launched under the aegis of
two total concepts of the book.
The first is distant from the noisy, news-edged world
of inventory books. It was articulated by the symbolist poet
Stéphane Mallarmé in his essay “The Book, A
Spiritual Instrument.” It dreamed of the entire
universe flowing into a single total book: a book,
both material and metaphysical, in time and outside time, that would fulfill and transcend the revolution
inaugurated by Johannes Gutenberg.
The second brings us closer to the world of electric
information age books. It was embraced by early avantgardes such as futurism and dreamed of an
exploded, porous book whose every page could
become an all-comprehending theater of the
present and a staging ground for ever-surprising
futures. László Moholy-Nagy is but one early theorist of
this Book of the Now:
Until recently typeface and typesetting rigidly preserved
a technique which, admittedly, guaranteed the purity of
the linear effect, but ignored the new dimensions of life.
Only quite recently has there been typographic work
which uses the contrasts of typographic material […] in an
attempt to establish a correspondence with modern life.
These efforts have, however, done little to relax the inflexibility that has hitherto existed in typographic practice. An

36

69

the e/a switch
The external history of the shaping of The Medium Is the
Massage as a publishing event has embedded within it an
internal history in which are nested two overlapping questions: the role of Fiore as designer/coauthor and the issue
of just how the design and drafting process unfolded. At
some point along this inside track, someone flipped the
switch that turned message into massage, transforming the
professorial one-man act of the author of Understanding
Media into a McLuhan/Fiore/Agel triple threat.
According to Eric McLuhan, that switch was thrown
not by design but by error. Massage was a typo, welcomed
in the Joycean manner: “When McLuhan saw the typo he
exclaimed, ‘Leave it alone! It’s great and right on target!’
Now there are four possible readings for the last word of
the title, all of them accurate:
Message
Mess Age
Massage and
Mass Age.”37
McLuhan’s biographers omit the tale of the typo. W.
Terrence Gordon surmises that “by the time [the book]
appeared in 1967, McLuhan no doubt recognized that his
original saying had become a cliché and welcomed the
opportunity to throw it back on the compost heap of language to recycle and revitalize it.”38 Philippe Marchand
seems to concur, dating the shift to a May 1966 presentation at the Laurentian management conference where
McLuhan led off a salvo of aphorisms with the oracular
pronouncement: “No longer will I say that the medium is
the message. I’ve changed my thinking. […] From now on,
I believe that the medium is the massage.”39 The switch
is repeated in a public lecture given at the Kaufmann Art
Gallery in New York City on May 7. Whatever the case
may be, May 1966 still situates the switch well within
the book’s development time line. This would have been

taneously, even philosophical works will presumably
use the same means, though on a higher plane, as the
present day American magazines. The form of these
new typographic works will, of course, be quite different
typographically, optically, and synoptically from the linear
typography of today.3

The passage is from Moholy-Nagy’s earliest Bauhaus
treatise, Painting Photography Film, published in 1925. However visionary, the
loosening up that it promotes became the
shared undertaking of multiple generations
and categories of practitioners. The spectrum was wide: some were professional
designers and artists, others journeymen; some worked
for illustrated newspapers, publishers, or commercial
printing shops, others labored in the laboratories of the
avant-garde. There was little agreement on terminology.
Typophotography was the neologism Moholy-Nagy coined
to denote the flexible, elastic, photo-driven medium of
the future. Jan Tschichold opted for the umbrella phrase
the new typography (with the understanding that “we see in photography
exactly the factor that distinguishes
our typography from everything that
went before”).4 Commercially minded
peers would instead have identified the venture with a new
age of advertising, with the making of the modern magazine, or with emerging genres of reportage like the photo

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Unlike mainstream counterparts like Reader’s Digest, they
prided themselves on being elite “writers’ magazines,”
with the ability to reach out to a “relatively mass audience”
(the phrase is Theodore Solotaroff’s from New American
Review’s premiere issue). Though they often cross boundary lines within the realm of writing, they remained textcentered. The word advertising is willfully absent from
their vocabulary.
Pressured by the rise of the alternative and rock
press (Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy), the paperback literary
magazine briefly veers off in a phototypographical direction around the time of the publication of The Medium of
the Message. Some existing reviews like Evergreen alter
their format from octavo to glossy quarto, anchoring every
issue in erotic photographs. Others, like Ralph Ginzburg’s
Avant-Garde (1968–71), designed by Herb Lubalin, ride
the high (art) road toward luxury hardcover solutions not
unlike those adopted by Horizon back in the 1950s.
US: The Paperback Magazine takes the opposite
tack. Squarely (if momentarily) embedded in the space
between the alternative press and mainstream media,
it represents an experimental incursion on the part of
Bantam Books into the youth market. Sold issue by issue
(not by subscription), it mixes underground comics (R.
Crumb, Victor Moscoso, Spain, Peter Bramley), concrete (Richard Kostelanetz) and free verse poetry (Ed
Sanders, Jim Morrison, Tom Clark, Ted Berrigan), and a
hodge-podge of articles ranging from profiles of the Living
Theater, Jack Kerouac, Timothy Leary, and Rex Reed, to
personal/political pieces (Nikki Giovanni, Ellen Willis). The
tone is mischievous and the prose unfussy (with four-letter words welcome), but the overall editorial standards are
solid. The review’s graphic style remains eclectic, paced
by visuals cast in a Pop psychedelic mold, low-end photocollages, photocopied title pages, and a high degree
of typographical variability. A few pieces are built around

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

The Electric Information Age Book
McLuhan/Agel/Fiore and the
Experimental Paperback
Jeffrey T. Schnapp and Adam Michaels
Introduction by Steven Heller
Afterword by Andrew Blauvelt
The Electric Information Age Book explores the nine-year
window of mass-market publishing in the sixties and
seventies when formerly backstage players—designers,
graphic artists, editors—stepped into the spotlight to
produce a series of exceptional books. Aimed squarely
at the young media-savvy consumers of the “Electronic
Information Age,” these small, inexpensive paperbacks
aimed to bring the ideas of contemporary thinkers like
Marshall McLuhan, R. Buckminster Fuller, Herman
Kahn, and Carl Sagan to the masses. Graphic designers
such as Quentin Fiore (The Medium is the Massage,
1967) employed a variety of radical techniques—verbalvisual collages and other typographic pyrotechnics—
that were as important to the content as the text. The
Electric Information Age Book is the first book-length
history of this brief yet highly influential publishing
phenomenon.
• Entertaining lost chapter in pop-culture history written
with a light, playful touch
• Designed to echo the look and feel of the original
paperbacks. Features numerous full-scale reproductions
of pages from the original publications
• Features an introduction by design writer Steven Heller
and an afterword by Andrew Blauvelt, Design Director
at the Walker Art Center

Typography Sketchbooks
Edited by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico
Typography is an obsession for most designers. It’s at
the heart of all visual communication and is one of the
purest forms of design, one that can always be
improved and refined. Typography Sketchbooks gets into
the minds of designers who create typefaces, wordimages and logos through their private sketchbooks.
The result of these wide-ranging typographic musings
provide fascinating insights into the expressive quality
of letters and words. Aimed at all those who use type,
whether by hand or on-screen, this pleasing
compendium stresses the importance of good
typography at a time when reading habits are changing
and celebrates a craft that has endured for centuries.
• Reveals how more than ninety of the world’s leading
designers and typographers continually strive to find
new and exciting ways of communicating through letters
and words
• Includes work by Ivan Chermayeff, Carlos Segura,
Milton Glaser, Maira Kalman, Bob Aufuldish, Matthew
Carter, Javier Mariscal and Patrick Thomas, Erik
Spiekermann, Viktor Nübel, Peter Bilak and Enkeling,
and Jean-Baptiste Levée

different cutouts of clothing, drawings, and silhouettes that
are attached to a field of each woman’s personal writings.
When I was considering possible palettes for each book, I
turned to MAC Cosmetics, recognized for serving women
of all origins. The resulting choices were derived from blush
powders, press powders, and eye shadows selected by a MAC
consultant and matched to a photo of each woman in her
particular outfit.

elga, Jennifer, Willa, Julee, and Rachel is based upon
drawings from WHERE I LIVE: Exploring Identity
through Bodies and Clothes, an installation I created of
life-sized 3-D images of real women that references
my childhood reveries with paper dolls, sewing cards,
storytelling, and things homemade. With this smaller scale,
I invite both personal reflection and imaginative play. Each
book has a unique signature on the cover and contains

hen we create books, we brainstorm the content,
design, and format, frequently on the telephone.
Freddie writes and prints the text; Bonnie produces images
using her original drawings, collages, rubber stamps, and
photographs. Freddie suggested a book on fashion because
she knew that it was one of Bonnie’s favorite subjects. We
were interested in the follies and foibles of the world of
fashion. The book includes an essay on clothing and
accessories with letterforms, which Freddie collects, and
descriptions and illustrations of vintage clothing, accessories,
hats, jewelry, and mannequins, all from Bonnie’s collections.
The bound book is contained in a handmade purse adorned
with a handmade glove and a lady’s calling card.

74

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T

he book combines three texts: “This World Is Off
Its Rocker When It Comes to Women” is a speech
about women’s devastating vulnerability to AIDS in Africa,
delivered by Stephen Lewis at the 2005 Summit on Global
Issues in Women’s Health. “Fugue” is a poem by Robyn
Sarah about women marching—alone or with their children,
carrying rugs, pianos, cats, and plants—to “the new country”
where “there will be room for everyone.” “Bread and Roses”
is a poem by James Oppenheim about the strike led by

women in Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1912 when American
Woolen Company cut their wages; the management
eventually raised their pay, doubled their overtime rate, and
promised amnesty for all strikers. One group of women
carried a banner proclaiming, “We want bread and roses
too,” emphasizing that they are not only laborers—they are
also women who want to be loved and given flowers. The
two themes that tie these texts together are women and
community. My inspiration for the women figures came
from a photograph of Sudanese women lining up to collect
water. Through the strength and struggles of the women
portrayed in each of these texts, along with the images of
women finally marching off the last page, the message is
clear: things can get better for women if they work together.

The Book as Art
Artists’ Books from the National Museum
of Women in the Arts
Krystyna Wasserman
with essays by Johanna Drucker and Audrey Niffenegger
Our landmark survey of women artists’ books is now
available in paperback. The Book as Art presents more
than one hundred of the most exquisite limited-edition
volumes held by the National Museum of Women in
the Arts in Washington, DC. Treasures of intricate
craftsmanship, these books take every conceivable form
as they engage a wide variety of subjects from food and
family to politics and poetry. Twelve recent acquisitions
are included in this new, updated paperback edition.
These exquisitely crafted objects are certain to provoke
unexpected and surprising conclusions about what
constitutes a book.
• Features an introduction by the most famous book artist
of our time, best-selling author Audrey Niffenegger (The
Time Traveler’s Wife)
• Collection is international and contemporary in scope,
dating from 1983 to the present
• Includes books created by major fine artists, such as
Meret Oppenheim, May Stevens, Kara Walker, and
Renee Stout, and distinguished book artists, such as
Susan King, Ruth Laxson, Claire Van Vliet, and Julie
Chen
• Descriptions of the works are accompanied by colorful
illustrations and reflections by their makers, along with
essays by leading scholars

tions, the Psiri district is a mix of ordinary activity
and low-level crime. KLab Architects designed Bar
Guru Bar to reflect this environment. Critics have
described the project as follows: “Located in a rundown area of the city, the bar is intended to resemble a bunker—protecting its contents during the day
and opening up at night.”3
KLab architecture stands for “kinetic lab of
architecture,” a group of young architects based in
Athens. Bar Guru Bar lives up to this moniker: its

Extreme Contrast

most visible feature is a large steel door that moves
vertically between the original one-story building
and the new one-story addition. The door is the
entire facade, including smaller window and door
openings. It shrouds the storefront during the day
and opens during nighttime hours. The surface is
made of rusting steel, purposefully used to indicate
a level of meaning beyond its functional duty. In
KLab’s words: “The rusting material of the facade is
a metaphor for the transformation in a deteriorating
phase. The building is also transformational with the
kinetic movement of steel plates that open to form
windows and doors.”4
The differentiation between new and old
is evident in this small building, especially since
almost all of the surrounding structures are whitewashed concrete; the new rusting steel door clearly

Old Buildings, New Designs

C oncept diagram

Case Studies

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OldNew_prop.indd 36-37

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2/10/11 10:38:51 AM

Openings in the giant steel door are able to open and close in an array
of configurations – in this case, slits and awnings.

left: In this case, slits, awnings,
and casements.

Case Studies

OldNew_prop.indd 38-39

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Architecture Briefs

Old Buildings, New Designs
Architectural Transformations
Charles Bloszies
Increasingly, architects are hired to design new work for
existing structures. Whether for reasons of preservation,
sustainability, or cost-effectiveness, the movement to
reuse buildings presents a variety of design challenges
and opportunities. Old Buildings, New Designs is an
Architecture Brief devoted to working within a given
architectural fabric—from the technical issues that arise
from aging construction to the controversy generated by the various project stakeholders to the unique
aesthetic possibilities created through the juxtaposition
of old and new.
• Features twenty-one case studies of built work by an
international list of renowned architects including
Daniel Libeskind, Renzo Piano, Foster + Partners, and
Herzog & de Meuron
• Accessible text provides the perfect primer for
practitioners as well as students of architecture
• Timely topic in light of current economic climate and
ongoing concern for sustainable architecture
• Author Charles Bloszies is both teacher and practitioner
with many years of experience in architectural
transformations
• Includes a foreword by acclaimed architect and
preservationist Hugh Hardy

Avi Friedman
After visiting twelve unique spots around the world,
architect and writer Avi Friedman asked himself what
made being there memorable. Whether strolling,
dining, looking, or getting lost, certain locales pulled
at his memory long after he bid farewell to the
natives. A world away, he reflected on the market he
stumbled upon in Dalian, China, one bright morning
and the community-building effect markets have
in neighborhoods around the world. While walking
through a collection of life-sized sculptures in the
Canadian arctic, he pondered the importance of
folk art in connecting to a place. And in Fargo, on a
numbingly frigid day, he wondered how climate should
influence the way cities are designed. He took his
thoughts and wrote them down. The Nature of Place is
about Friedman’s intricate and emotional connection
to place, and what makes these places “work,” and
is perfect for the frequent traveler and the frequent
dreamer.
• OWL Award nominee (Non-Fiction), one of Canada’s
most prestigious literary awards
• Friedman is also the author of Narrow Houses
(Princeton Architectural Press, 2010)

Toward a New Interior
An Anthology of Interior Design Theory
Lois Weinthal
Interior design, as a relatively young discipline within
the academic world of design, has historically been
interpreted as an extension of other fine arts. Narratives
exist, but they all too often treat interior design as
a function of architecture or display rather than
experience. An independent interior design theory is
virtually nonexistent. Professor Lois Weinthal envisions
a future where interior design is treated with parity to
architecture and industrial design, a future with a new
interior.

Toward a New Interior
An Anthology of
Interior Design Theory

• Weinthal has carefully curated (and in some cases
repurposed) a collection of forty-eight sources that
will form the foundation of interior design theory and
shape future interior space

material for in situ castings, or prefabricated bricks
and blocks. [Fig. 4]
Ceramics are earthen materials that are
transformed by heat into stonelike substances. Clay
used to make ceramics consists of hydrous aluminum
silicate compounds derived from feldspar-rich rocks,
as well as mica, calcite, iron oxides, and quartz. The
physical properties of ceramics depend on the kind of
clay— kaolinite, montmorillonite-smectite, and illite
being the three most common types—as well as the
firing temperature. Clayware and stoneware have low
firing temperatures (900–1300°C), while porcelain
and oxidized ceramics are fired at higher temperatures
(1300–2100°C). Common types of ceramics used in
building construction include bricks, pipes, tiles, and
ceramic panels. [Fig. 5]

Rock is the product of the crystallization of liquid
magma. We classify the three types of rock based
on the process of formation: igneous rock is the
“original rock” formed directly from liquid magma;
sedimentary rock is made of particles from rocks
that have been deposited in layers and solidified
by a process called diagenesis; and metamorphic
rock consists of the transformation of igneous or
sedimentary rocks via intense heat and pressure.
The most common types of stone used for building
include granite and basalt (igneous), sandstone and
limestone (sedimentary), and marble, slate, and gneiss
(metamorphic).
Loam is an earthen material that consists of equal
parts clay, silt, and sand. Clay, which has the finest
particles of the three and is the result of decomposed
rock, acts as the binder for the other materials. Loam
is a relatively weak material and may be strengthened
by adding gravel and organic reinforcing materials
such as straw. It is also typically tamped or compressed
to make rammed earth, or pisé for durability. Loam
is typically applied in one of two forms: loose bulk

—Manuel De Landa

Earth and stone were some of the first materials that
early hominids used to make shelter and tools. Many
ancient myths and religions related earth and stone
to human flesh and bone, respectively—minerals
of varying consistency were seen as symbolically
connected to the body and its duality of suppleness
and fortitude. Active engagement with these materials
marked the beginning of human prehistory as well as
its end: The Stone Age constituted over 99 percent
of humanity’s existence, and its transition into the
Copper and Bronze ages occurred roughly around the
beginning of recorded history.
Loam, stone, and ceramics were fundamental
to the genesis of civilization, and they gave physical
form and order to the first cities. Characterized by
their compressive strength, these materials were
appropriate for the thick-walled, low-slung structures

“Soft tissue (gels and aerosols, muscle and nerve) reigned
supreme until 500 million years ago. At that point, some
of the conglomerations of fleshy matter-energy that made
up life underwent a sudden mineralization, and a new
material for constructing living creatures emerged: bone...
The human endoskeleton was one of the many products
of that ancient mineralization. Yet it is not the only
geological infiltration that the human species has
undergone. About eight thousand years ago, human
populations began mineralizing again when they developed
an urban exoskeleton: bricks of sun-dried clay became
the building materials for their homes, which in turn
surrounded and were surrounded by stone monuments
and defensive walls.” [Fig. 2]

that emerged as successive layers of earth were laid
and compacted to make the first load-bearing walls.
For millennia, this striated architecture signified
weight, presence, and longevity. [Fig. 3]
In modern times, the use of the bearing wall has
all but disappeared in industrialized nations, and has
been replaced by frame construction with applied
material skins. The persistence of earthen materials in
contemporary building despite this transformation is
a testament to their powerful legacy. Currently, stone
and brick are applied as suspended or self-supporting
surfaces on skeletal frames—a perverse transmutation
from their original use. However, both the broad
availability of many mineral resources as well as the
perseverance of stone and ceramics as architectural
membranes suggest an important future of earthen
materials in building construction.

history

Earthen materials were critical to the origins of
technology. The Stone Age marked the first human
epoch and consisted of the development of stone
tools and pottery, as well as the construction of early
settlements. Megalithic monuments constructed of

When Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Imperial
Hotel in Tokyo in 1923, he specified Oya stone for a
facing material. Located only within a 9.27 mi2 (24
km2) area in Japan’s Tochigi prefecture, Oya stone
is a kind of volcanic tuff known for its resistance to
fire and erosion, as well as its easy workability. By the
time Wright selected the stone for its rich texture,
color, and softness, it had already been used in the
walls and foundations of Kanto region buildings for
centuries. In the construction boom that followed
World War II, Oya stone mining reached nine
hundred thousand tons annually until concrete
became a more popular alternative construction
material.
Given the opportunity to design a building in
Tochigi prefecture on the site of an abandoned rice
warehouse built of Oya stone, Kengo Kuma seized the
chance to work with the material. The Chokkura Plaza
houses a community hall and exhibition gallery, and
the new structure is located immediately adjacent to

the existing building. Never one to use material in
a conventional way, Kuma decided to make a porous
wall with the Oya stone, inspired by its physical
porosity. In keeping with his strong aspirations to
dematerialize architecture, Kuma detailed the stone
wall so that the material appears to float. Alternating
courses of chevron-shaped stones barely touch at their
apex, suggesting an impossible lightness. In reality, the
stones are supported by a ¼ inch (6 mm) thick steel
plate—strong enough to hold the stone, yet thin
enough to be undetectable from a short distance.
However, both materials perform structural work as
a composite system: steel supports stone, and stone
supports steel.
The Chokkura Plaza embodies Kuma’s search for
lightness as well as the true expression of materials.
In the project, he sought “to oppose the covering up
of the entire world with concrete and steel through
the use of local materials and collaboration with local
craftsmen in the creation of an invisible architecture.”

gantenbein Winery

28

When Bearth & Deplazes Architects hired Gramazio
& Kohler to design the facade for an extension to a
winery, the researchers at ETH Zürich only had three
months until completion of construction. The clients
had requested a new structure that would house a
fermentation room for grape processing, a cellar for
wine barrel storage, and a terrace for wine tastings.
Familiar with Gramazio & Kohler’s explorations
in robotic fabrication studies, Bearth & Deplazes
requested that the designers apply their process to the
exterior infill panels of the addition.
Using an oversized image of a basket filled with
grapes, Gramazio & Kohler created an abstract digital
template to superimpose on the building’s 4,300 ft2
(400 m2) facade. They programmed a robot in their
laboratory to construct panels out of individually laid
bricks, and the brick angles were established based
on the brightness of individual pixels within the

photograph of grapes. According to the researchers,
“similarly to pixels on a computer screen they add
up to a distinctive image and thus communicate
the identity of the vineyard. In contrast to a twodimensional screen, however, there is a dramatic play
between plasticity, depth and color, dependent on
the viewer’s position and the angle of the sun.” An
automated procedure regulated the application of
two-component bonding agent to the bricks, ensuring
the panels’ rigidity.
During construction, the seventy-two panels were
delivered to the site on a truck and lifted into place by
crane. The shifting orientations of twenty thousand
bricks allow light to penetrate the structure at varying
angles and intensities. The brick naturally tempers
peak outdoor temperatures via its thermal mass, and
clear polycarbonate panels located on the interior
block wind and rain penetration.

pr i nc eton a rc h i te ct u r a l pr e s s

Architecture Briefs

Material Strategies
Innovative Applications in Architecture
Blaine Brownell
Blaine Brownell’s best-selling Transmaterial series
has introduced designers to hundreds of emergent
materials that have the potential to transform our
built environment. In our new Architecture Brief,
Material Strategies, Brownell shows architects how
creative applications of these materials achieve such
transformations. Chapters based on fundamental
material categories examine historical precedents,
current opportunities, and future environmental
challenges. Case studies featuring detailed illustrations
showcase pioneering buildings from today’s most
forward-thinking architectural firms.
• An ideal primer on the role of materials in architectural
design
• Contemporary case studies include buildings by Kengo
Kuma and Associates, Herzog & de Meuron, Steven Holl
Architects, and Zaha Hadid
• The first book to examine both the role material
innovation has played in architectural history and its
relevance for today’s architects
• Moves beyond the conventional methodologies of
building-technology courses and the purely
technological contexts of professional practice

After Taste
Expanded Practice in Interior Design
Kent Kleinman, Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, and
Lois Weinthal, editors
What is taste? This well-curated collection documents
new theories and emerging critical practices in the field
of interior design. It investigates taste, a concept central
to the formation of the discipline in the eighteenth
century that was repudiated by architects in the early
twentieth century, but which continues to play an
important role in interior design today. Essays by
historians and critics are complemented by interviews
with practitioners on the margins of normative practice
and portfolios of the work of contemporary designers.
• An important, critical look at an understudied field
• Essential reading for interior designers as well as
architects
• From the annual symposium After Taste, hosted by
Parsons The New School of Design
• Features portfolios of artist Courtney Smith,
photographer James Casebere, and interior and
landscape designer Petra Blaisse and interviews with
animation filmmakers Timothy and Stephen Quay
(Quay Brothers) and space architect Constance Adams
• Contributions by Penny Sparke, Kent Kleinman,
J. M. Bernstein, Anthony Vidler, Julieanna Preston,
Joanna Merwood-Salisbury, Alex Kitnick, Susan
Yelavich, and Jorge Otero-Pailos

Pamphlet Architecture 32
Resilience
James A. Craig and Matt Ozga-Lawn
The competition for Pamphlet Architecture 32 centered
on the theme of resilience. By addressing the capacity
to cope, the ability to bounce back, and the mitigation
and management of risk, participants were asked to
showcase a fresh understanding of the architectural
opportunities found in resilience. The winning entry
successfully takes on the topic through an investigation
of the ravaged city of Warsaw, Poland. By identifying,
interrogating, and ultimately reinforcing both the
physical and immaterial conditions of the landscape,
the project allows the space to become something new
and yet hold on to what it is, truly exhibiting resilience.
• Founded in 1977 as an alternative to mainstream
architectural publishing, Pamphlet Architecture helped
launch the careers of architects from Steven Holl and
Lebbeus Woods to Zaha Hadid
• The annual competition has attracted hundreds of
participants from around the world

The Concrete Dragon
China’s Urban Revolution and What It Means
for the World
Thomas J. Campanella
“Thomas J. Campanella tackles what he calls the greatest
building boom in human history: the creation of whole new
cities throughout China, where superhighways, theme parks,
and engineering projects light up the night sky. Campanella
is an able guide to the dusty haze of China’s ever-growing
construction sites.” —Dwell

The speed and scale of China’s urban revolution
challenge nearly all our expectations about architecture,
urbanism, and city planning. Now available in
paperback, The Concrete Dragon provides a critical
overview of contemporary Chinese urbanization in
light of China’s past as well as other earlier episodes
of rapid urban development elsewhere in the world—
especially that of the United States, a nation that itself
once set global records for the speed and scale of
its urban ambitions.
• China is the most rapidly urbanizing nation in the
world, with an urban population likely to reach one
billion within a generation
• China’s construction industry employs a workforce
equal to the population of California
• China is now home to some of the world’s tallest
skyscrapers, biggest shopping malls, longest bridges,
largest airport, most expansive theme parks, largest
gated communities, and even the world’s largest
skateboard park

Also Available . . .

• By 2020 China’s national network of expressways will
exceed, in length, the American interstate highway
system

Counterpunch
Making Type in the Sixteenth Century,
Designing Typefaces Now
Fred Smeijers
Typography is still dominated by letterforms from the
first one hundred years of European printing. What
were the processes and attitudes that lie behind these
forms? Fred Smeijers is a type designer who learned
to design and cut punches: the key instruments with
which metal type is made. This book is a work of practical history, with much contemporary relevance.
• Lively, pointed drawings and photographs complement
an equally fresh text
• Takes in the fundamentals of designing and making
letters
• Lucid line drawings by Smeijers, along with greatly
enlarged photographs of punches, reveal them as the
sculptures they are

Human Space
Otto Friedrich Bollnow
Translated by Christine Shuttleworth
Edited by Joseph Kohlmaier
Following its publication in Germany in 1963, Otto
Friedrich Bollnow’s Human Space quickly became
essential reading within a cross-disciplinary field of
subject areas including architecture, anthropology, and
philosophy. In this first English translation, Bollnow
conceives the human experience of space not merely
as a philosophical problem but also as an extension
of his research into psychology, human behavior, and
the conventional domains of architecture: living in a
building, in an apartment, in a house. Human Space is
a remarkable investigation of space as we experience
it, by a man many consider to be the father of spatial
and architectural anthropology. This lush hardcover
edition includes an afterword by Joseph Kohlmaier that
situates the work in the context of philosophical and
architectural discussion.
Shipping May 2011
—
4.9 × 8.3 in / 12.5 × 21 cm
320 pp
Paperback
978-0-907259-35-0
$35.00
North and South America only
—
53500

Publisher’s Note
In my last “Publisher’s Note,” in our Spring 2011 catalog, I hinted at some big changes ahead. I can now
be less coy about this and announce (unless you’re a reader of the publishing business press, in which
case you may already know) that Princeton Architectural Press has joined, at the beginning of this year,
the McEvoy Group of companies, which includes Spin magazine, the publisher/packager Becker&Mayer,
and, most importantly, our friends and colleagues at Chronicle Books, the much-admired San Francisco–
based publisher and our North American distributor since 1995, and arguably the biggest single factor in
our growth since then.
Almost as soon as this deal was made public, some of the publishing trade magazines called
to ask why I’d sold the Press: was it the decline of independent bookstores, always champions and
showcases of our books, the bankruptcy of Borders, or the rise of e-books? My answer was simple: this
is a partnership based not on necessity but on strategic strengths and a shared optimism about the
possibilities ahead for both companies. The McEvoy Group believes strongly in the future of the printed
book (look no further than the books produced by Chronicle for confirmation of this). As Dave Eggers,
founder/publisher of McSweeney’s, recently wrote, these are actually very good times for books: more
people read than ever before (including teens), more books are sold now than at any time in the past
twenty years, and there are actually more independent bookstores now than there were two years ago.
Anybody who declares that the printed book is dead clearly hasn’t looked at the beautiful new offerings
in this catalog on pages 15 to 52. The simple truth remains that the printed book is an ecologically finetuned device, made of reusable and sustainable materials (such as recycled paper and soy-based inks),
capable of displaying four color information at extremely high resolutions, and which can be made and
distributed at very low cost and used with no external power source. All this without even considering
the tactile and haptic dimensions of the printed, bound artifact, something which even the sexiest tablet
will never come close to duplicating. See, for example, our book on Patty Curtan’s menus and artwork
she’s created in letterpress and linoleum block for the celebrated restaurant Chez Panisse (p. 15) over the
past forty years, if you’re looking for an example of art- and book-making that can never be simulated
electronically.
This said, it would be foolish to ignore the opportunities available to the forward-looking in
the realm of digital publishing, and this is another area where we look ahead optimistically with the
McEvoy Group. Indeed, you’ll find many of our books available in e-reader format at places like amazon.
com, and hundreds of titles available for use, particularly by students and professors, at online libraries
like ebrary.com and learningtree.com (details on specific titles available on our website at www.papress.
com). When I watch my teenage sons leave the house in the morning with their forty-pound backpacks,
I know firsthand that a lightweight and easily updated electronic course reader makes a huge amount of
sense, and we are committed to making as many of our books available in this way as possible, and on the
devices most consistent with our commitment to design and typographic excellence.
So it is this dual commitment to the printed book and enthusiasm for the new frontiers opened
up by digital publishing that culminated in our agreement with the McEvoy Group. As they were thirty
years ago when the Press began, these are exciting times for publishing, full of promise, great ideas, and
bright and creative coworkers. So rather than the end of a chapter, I think it is much more appropriate to
think of this new partnership as the opening sentence in chapter two, the next thirty years. I’m confident
you’ll find the books in this new catalog, whether you buy or download them, as rich food for thought
and inspiration as any published in the world today.
As always, we greatly welcome your feedback, ideas, and comments. Feel free to email me at
lippert@papress.com or leave notes on our website www.papress.com.